The shadow health secretary, Victoria Atkins, has been reprimanded for her behaviour during a parliamentary debate on the king’s speech after she attempted to loudly interrupt another MP.
The Conservative MP stood at the dispatch box and spoke over the secretary for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), Steve Reed, while the deputy speaker, Christopher Chope, called for order on Friday.
Chope then told the chamber: “The right honourable lady has behaved abominably.”
The Labour MP Perran Moon said Atkins’s behaviour was “an absolute disgrace” and called for appropriate action to be taken.
The Liberal Democrat MP Helen Morgan wrote on X: “I witnessed this first-hand. The Conservatives proved the electorate got it right: they are not fit for government.”
Josh Fenton-Glynn, the Labour MP for Calder Valley, wrote on X: “I think the fact you don’t get to speak as much in opposition is hard for them to get used to.”
The incident happened during the planning, green belt and rural affairs debate.
The shadow Defra secretary, Steve Barclay, said: “This king’s speech does nothing for the farming and fishing communities and the decisions we’ve seen so far are ones that take vast amounts of farmland out of food production in order to prioritise the eco-zealotry, which we’ve heard so often in this house.”
During his response, Reed declined interventions from Barclay as well as from the Conservative frontbenchers Kemi Badenoch and Atkins.
But Atkins, the MP for Louth and Horncastle in Lincolnshire, stood at the dispatch box as Reed continued to speak and Tory members continued to call for interventions.
Closing the debate, Reed, the MP for Streatham and Croydon North in south London, said: “After 14 years of chaos, there is once again hope for our environment, hope for our countryside and hope for our rural communities. I welcome the king’s speech, I recommend it to this house.”
A spokesperson for Atkins’ office said: “Conservative MPs were trying to get answers about their budgets for farming, flood defences and food security, which the minister ignored.
“She will always stand up fearlessly for farmers and our rural area in Westminster, even if that means a rare admonishment from the Chair.”
A source told the Guardian that Atkins did not use the opportunity to ask questions by requesting to speak during the debate and she did not attend most of the debate.
The source added: “Despite claims from her office, she was actually shouting at Steve Reed while he was talking about the NHS, not farming, something she played a leading role in breaking.
“The secretary of state for the environment only had eight minutes to respond to all the points made during the full three-hour debate which he was trying to do when Atkins started shouting at him in breach of parliamentary rules for orderly conduct.”
